ALPINE TOWNSHIP — A bar on Alpine Avenue NW may lose its liquor license after Township Board members expressed serious concern about public safety following a summer of increased calls by police that culminated last week with a double shooting.

Next month, Gipper’s Sports Bar and Grille at 3850 Alpine Ave. NW, will find out the fate of its Class C liquor license — which it won approval for last November — after the board unanimously voted Monday night to schedule a hearing on revoking it.

“There are issues there that don’t happen at other bars in Alpine Township,” said Township Supervisor Alex Arends. “Especially in the last couple months.”

On Sept. 11, Jennifer Billings, 30, of Cascade Township and Scott Daymeen, 23, of Grand Rapids, each showed up at a local hospital after 2 a.m. with gunshot wounds to the legs, which the Kent County Sheriff’s Department says they received in Gipper’s parking lot.

The week prior, on Sept. 4, two women were assaulted near the pool tables around last call by a man whom deputies said started beating each of them in the face after one woman hit him because she overheard him calling them “disrespectful names.”

Police said the incidents come at the end of a summer of escalating incidents involving fights inside, disorderly crowds brawling outside and intoxicated drivers leaving the bar and speeding down Alpine Avenue.

Deputy Nate Ertle told board members that the bar, which becomes a hip-hop style dance club on Saturday nights, is “drawing a criminal population” from Grand Rapids and that detectives believe some patrons may be associated with Southeast Side gangs.

Ertle said the department has responded to 18 calls related to Gipper’s in 2011, about half of them since the end of July, when they said the bar owner, Nai Gang Lin, contracted with a new promoter to draw in a bigger crowd on Saturday nights.

Ertle said nobody from the bar called police after the shooting and when police arrived a couple days later to get security footage from the eight cameras inside the bar, Lin told them it had been accidentally taped over.

Lin, alongside bar manager Jesse Benedict and their attorney, Kevin Peterson, said they are installing cameras outside and recently started keeping a closer eye on crowd capacity. The maximum occupancy is 325 people.

“It’s all girls on girls, not gangs,” said Lin, of the fights. “I can’t put up a sign that says ‘no certain type of people.’”

“They are doing everything they can to cooperate with police,” assured Peterson, who noted the bar’s only violation on file with the Michigan Liquor Control Commission was for bounced checks.

Alpine Fire Chief Ron Christians verified that bar management followed his instruction recently to install missing fire lane signs in the parking lot, and the fire systems inside were code-compliant.

Kent County Lt. Ron Gates said the department’s major case team is investigating the shooting, but nobody had been arrested. The suspect was seen fleeing in a four-door silver sedan, possibly a Cadillac.

A warrant request for the women’s assailant has been sent to prosecutors, he said, but the suspect hasn’t been located.

Treasurer Jim Townsend, who moved to schedule the hearing, summed up the situation at Gipper’s with a few simple words: “bad people, alcohol and guns.”

The MLCC generally defers to local government’s judgment when making decisions on whether to revoke a liquor license. Gipper’s hearing is scheduled for Oct. 10 at 7:30 p.m.